Honestly, this is overrated. It's by no means a bad show but it is seriously blown out of the water, basically by youtubers and others who are fans of ashita no joe, which I hadn't heard of until now, and happen to like old art-styles, which I do.
It's a pretty typical underdog story, except not really. Typically in animes the mc of an underdog story goes through a bunch of arcs, however short, in which they develop their skill and often their character, however these are typically found in shounens which this isn't. The way that this story tries to convey this is simply through
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ranking, which isn't really focused on all that much since the biggest changes in ranking have been of screen. It starts off with the mc and his coach throwing matches in an underground arena for chumps change to a fight in the best ring against the best their is.
The way the story develops is very forced and rather emotionless. Pretty much all that happens is the mc gets challenged by the champ himself and asked to go to a stage he simply shouldnt be able to get to since he isnt a citizen. But all he does is misbehave and risk the life of his coach because he got a bit cranky that he wasnt given permission by him, despite stating himself that he cant get their.
Obviously they find a way but it's done using the "I have the guts to not back down" cliche the coach throws to ask his debt collector to help him, even though they just lost him money and caused him trouble, and he helps, of course.
If you've seen it once this scene will be visible from a mile away and the rest of the show continues in the same vain.
A new character is added to the main cast as a search for a good gear happens, only to not use any gear at all and not use the character for anything but to occasionally settle arguments and cheer on the mc, they are absolutely useless and fill no role, they only draw attention to the lack of teamwork between the mc and the coach which isn't enjoyable to watch because their isn't any tension between them, it's simply the fact that neither listens to each other and the anime plays it off as if they were made for each other. They don't come up with new ideas and the entire time it feels like the mc undermines the coach, and for whatever reason the coach respects him for it?? It doesn't make sense but it happens.
As a but more focus on the fights, most of the time the choreography is awful and the punches thrown are emotionless, when series of punches are thrown without any foot work or attempt to get away or even re-position for a punch, with the mc being knocked down continuously whilst knocked his opponent down for the count with a single punch. There simply isn't any weight behind them as their isn't ever much of a connection between him and his opponent. He doesnt use gear so they dont fight on equal grounds, and most of the time the opponent is defined by his gear or general fighting style, making them feel very bland at the end of things. The only fight which I can say didnt fall into this completely is with the veteran soldier and that's mostly because he had an emotional backstory which ties in with the coach, and even this fight wasnt interesting because of the mc as he didnt even win it or do anything remotely interesting. The fight ending by default didnt make me care about our mc despite being the most emotional end we get.
Some of the build up we get is wasted as well, a lot of things end with a problem occuring and everything continuing as planned anyway or through some cliches shit where the mc basically throws another tantrum and gets what he wants. These problems are undermined repeatedly throughout the story and the one time something happens, which oddly enough happened to have good choreography during the fight, part of the problem was just dismissed, simply because 'he showed so much guts in his actions that I just had to let him go.'
Another issue with the series, as I mentioned before is the lack of development. My main problem is that it seems to make a half-assed attempted at developing the main characters skill, which always plays out like, this needs to be improved by doing this, then instantly doing that single thing which may or may not even be used during the fight, and if it is, it wont be that entertaining to see. It's almost as if it just uses some twisted plot armor for the sake of not writing better.
And speaking of writing the concept of a massive tournament featuring something that isn't even used by the main character and gets ditched at the end is simply lackluster. For 13 episodes setting up a system where off screen fights have to be used, and all in one go for convenience, was simply not a good idea. It wouldve been better if it had been much smaller but the choice of this made each fight seem less significant especially considering the rate at which they progressed. The use of gear was one-dimensional, really not bringing anything to the table outside of a normal fight, especially considering a scrawny guy is able to one shot someone with some serious high tech gear and withstand any punches he receives. It really fails to convey how strong the main character is, especially considering his size, and is also inconsistent with the power of the gear. The only thing they irritatingly force you to think is that the mc is the 'genuine article' which they dont ever want you to forget and is used as an excuse to let him do what he wants through half the series.
Art is okay, reminiscent of retro styles but it looks too clean in a lot of places, so unless you're used to watching anime that are incredibly cleanly animated, which most aren't, the art really doesnt stand out and I feel people are practically making a fuss out of nothing. Character designs arent anything special. I especially dont like the mc since the way he acts and his actions really dont reflect his looks. He looks more like a NEET than an actual fighter, which im guessing they tried to fix by giving him a number of scars, but they dont even stand out.
Sound is pretty good, most of the time it doesnt stand out all that much and I only ever noticed when a character was rapping, which was cool, or the main theme tune played.
Overall, it's not bad. Just rather mediocre. A few good bits here and there, a number of missed opportunities and a lot of noise from practically everyone watching it atm (whilst it airs). With plenty of people considering it anime of the year already even though it's in the same season as Steins Gate 0, hell, Golden Kamuy was much better than this even though they skipped a lot of the interesting bits and had bad cgi.
Mediocrity describes it best
Jun 25, 2018
Megalo Box
(Anime)
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Honestly, this is overrated. It's by no means a bad show but it is seriously blown out of the water, basically by youtubers and others who are fans of ashita no joe, which I hadn't heard of until now, and happen to like old art-styles, which I do.
It's a pretty typical underdog story, except not really. Typically in animes the mc of an underdog story goes through a bunch of arcs, however short, in which they develop their skill and often their character, however these are typically found in shounens which this isn't. The way that this story tries to convey this is simply through ... |
